At the conceptual level of my study, I am eager to explore the triangular influence of technology, culture and people. Multicultural experience that I had in Canada, US and China was a great inspiration; finding differences both obvious and subtle between the cultures, I concluded that it was impossible to truly understand human behavior and to design meaningful artifacts without first giving a great deal of thought to the social and cultural contexts of their usage. To pursue this level, I have studied related disciplines such as media theory, visual culture and cultural anthropology. This will be the theoretical background to proceed to the critical design discourses and practices.

Orality vs. Literacy[1][2]
Specifically, I am interested in how orality and literacy have affected on the use of digital media differently in historical and cross-cultural perspectives. For instance, Korea 's oral culture and the West's print culture have become the different starting points of internet usage. Korean people use internet as a means of emotional communication within their acquaintances, therefore Social Networking Services flourished earlier than other countries. Comparably in the Western print cultures, I found people in general use internet as information provider, and SNS and collective knowledge are becoming popular only over past few years.

Computer-Mediated Communication
Social media design that does not infringe on privacy is one of my research topics. There is the common mythology that information can be fully meaningful when it is delivered to other people. A growing majority of information devices are equipped with a host of networking features. In some cases, the devices leave few options for the people, but to share information without sufficient consideration of their privacy. Founded on the initial interest and the current problems, I am interested in identifying the situations that need true communication capability. Ethnomethodology[3], self-representation theories[4] from psychology and activity theory[5] for interaction design, design patterns[6] would be the base of my research.

Today's graphical user interface limit human's perceptual, cognitive and physical abilities while also limiting the boundary of computing technology can be used. To overcome these limitations, I am interested in designing novel interfaces to support natural interaction. The domain of design practice includes any experimental forms possible to implement the interfaces - interactive products, mobile devices, space with pervasive technology, public installation or web-based application.

Multi-Modal Interfaces for Affective Computing
Although usability - efficiency, effectiveness - is an important rule for the satisfactory design, affective factors are great values in creating novel experience. For my thesis research, I studied haptic interfaces for websites and evaluated the emotional aspects of the tactile feedback prototypes. Since I feel the framework to design affective information system has not been sufficiently investigated, I want to build up on my previous research, employing various qualitative methods[7].

Creativity and Meta-Interactivity
Another example of my interests is meta-interactivity design in the context of play. Working at an online game company, I analyzed the mechanics of card and board games and applied them to user-generated digital games. Theories of interactive narrative[8], game design[9][10] and interactivity will help develop the idea. A further interest is the exploration of the underlying rules that inspire the abilities of people to create and share their experiences. Next, I want to design beyond-screen interfaces to demonstrate this meta-interactivity. One possible idea is tangible interfaces over table to design virtual board games.


Reference
[1] McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 2nd Ed. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994.
[2] Ong, Walter. Orality and Literacy: the Technologies of the Word. London; New York: Methuen, 1982.
[3] Dourish, Paul. Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004.
[4] Goffman, Erving. Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.
[5] Kaptelinin, Victor and Bonnie A. Nardi. Acting with Technology: Activity Theory and Interaction Design. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2006.
[6] Alexander, Christopher, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein. A Pattern Language: Towns, Building, Construction. New York: Oxford University Presss, 1977.
[7] Picard, Rosalind. Affective Computing. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000.
[8] Murray, Janet H. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.
[9] Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Pat Harrigan (Eds). First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998.
[10] Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman. Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2003